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Marianne Ostier was the innovative designer behind Ostier, Inc., a Manhattan jewelry firm she ran with her husband, an Austrian court jeweler, after they emigrated in 1938. Ostier was known for organic textures and designs that reflect her training as an artist and sculptor.

You may know Verdura as one of the designer flagships along the glitziest couple blocks of Fifth Avenue, but the original Verdura was an Italian aristocrat-turned-jeweler who collaborated with Coco Chanel, Paul Flato and Salvador Dali. All those partnerships produced…

Oh, the bustle, the glitter, the animated window displays. Is there anything better than Manhattan at holiday time? Well, maybe Manhattan with a couple jewelry previews thrown in. I schedule December visits to coincide with the Magnificent Jewels sales at…

This Sunday, Mad Men launches into its seventh and final season, wrapping up a journey through the swinging sixties that began in 1960 with their pilot, aired in 2007, and looks like it will end just as the seventies begin.…

by Cathleen McCarthy • December 14, 2011 • Comments Off on Elizabeth Taylor jewelry auction breaks five world records

Christie’s sale of Elizabeth Taylor’s famous jewels was anticipated to be the most important single-owner jewelry sale in a decade, but the results were staggering. Taylor’s jewelry went for $115,932,000 – the most ever paid for a private jewelry collection.…

by Cathleen McCarthy • November 16, 2011 • Comments Off on Liz Taylor on the block: $100 and up

Rahul Kadakia met Elizabeth Taylor at an auction in Cannes in 1999. “I was a young boy and here was Miss Taylor, Hollywood star and humanitarian, and she was right there beside me, helping me raise funds for the American…

Most of us know by now that Dali, Calder, even Picasso designed jewelry at some point. But Yoko Ono, Frank Stella, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons? Before Picasso to Koons went up at the Museum of Arts and Design last month,…

Continued from Jewelry by Picasso: the secret stash of Dora Maar, part 2 Gloria Lieberman, director of fine jewelry at Skinners in Boston, had not seen the jewelry Picasso made for Dora Maar when we spoke before the 1998 auction,…

by Cathleen McCarthy • August 19, 2011 • Comments Off on Jewelry by Picasso: the secret stash of Dora Maar, part 2

Continued from Jewelry by Picasso: the secret stash of Dora Maar, part 1: At the auction, a chrome-metal watch with a brass plaque engraved with a portrait of Maar sold for about $63,000 – 19 times its estimated value of…